The Art of the Bookplate by James P. Keenan
Foreword by George Plimpton
Hardcover, dust jacket, 6 3/4" x 8 7/8", 176 pages, new and in mint condition.
The world is full of people who love books. People who not only love to read, but who love to possess and collect books. Since the fifteenth century truly devoted collectors have commissioned their own bookplates, known also as ex libris.
Some are straightforward-a simple label bearing the owner's name. Others are impressive works of art in miniature. Whether plain or fancy, bookplates give an owner a special sense of proud proprietorship. Even more important, they assure that if a cherished book is lent, it has a decent chance of being returned.
They are an indulgence of the rich and famous, certainly. And The Art of the Bookplate includes many owned by prominent people such as George Washington, Charlie Chaplin, John F. Kennedy, Joan Crawford, J. P. Morgan, Walt Disney, Gracie Allen, Otto Bismarck. Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt. Harry Houdini, Sigmund Freud, Charles Dickens, and Anita Loos. But other bookplate patrons are unknown to us, like Mabel Bishop, whose charming ex libris shows a young woman tending her garden, or Lucius Fisher. whose bookplate, naturally enough, features a fish.
In this delightful book James P. Keenan, Director of the American Society of Bookplate Collectors & Designers, shares many of his favorite bookplates. He explains the history behind each, and discusses the artists - some as famous as Rockwell Kent and Claes Oldenburg, others as unknown as their patrons. But whether well known or not, ex libris owners are passionate about keeping their book collections intact. As one very old bookplate proclaims, "Steal not this book for fear of shame, For here you see the owner's name."
The Art of the Bookplate is a book to be treasured and, of course, kept in your possession.
INDEX
A
Edwin Austin Abbey • Charles Dexter Allen • Gracie Allen • American Bookplates: A Guide to Their Study with Examples (Allen) • American Bookplate Society • Alexander Anderson • Mary Ayfield
B
John Hopkinson Baker • Leonard Baskin • Aubrey Beardsley • David Belasco • Robert Anning Bell • Alice Babbitt Bennett • Thomas Bewick • Elisha Brown Bird • Mabel Bishop • Otto von Bismarck • W. K. Bixby • Robert Woods Bliss • Henk Blokhuis • A. Bookman • Borders (decorative) • Frank Brangwyn • Robert Browning • Frederick Bull • John Malcolm Bulloch • John Bunyan • Lina Burger • William Henry Burnham and Katharine French • Raymond Burr
C
James Cagney • Lewis Carroll • Enrico Caruso • Estelle Gertrude Cassidy • Vija Celmins • The Century Association • Bennett Cerf • Marc Chagall • Charles Chaplin • Royden W. Cheney • Classifications • Timothy Cole • Collecting (books, history) • Collectors • Colonial Dames of America • Calvin Coolidge • Roy Cooney • Cosmos Club • Lucas the Elder Cranach • Walter Crane • Joan Crawford
D
Bette Davis • Henry Dawkins • Clarence Day • Stephen Daye • Charles de Gaulle • Cecil B. DeMille • Design/imagery (action, allegorical, angelic, animals, architectural, armorial, arts, asymmetrical, aviation, birds, for children, domestic, dragon, dramatic, fashion, fish, floral, fruit, genealogy, geographical, geometric, griffins, heraldic, historical, homestead, horticultural, humorous, idealized, landscape, legal, literary, mechanical, military, mottoes, musical, mythological, naturalistic, nautical, pastoral, pictorial, political, Pop art, portrait, professional, romantic, scenic, scientific, spiritual, sports, stylized, symmetrical, theatrical, vignettes, vocational, whimsical) • Andy Devine • Jack and Elizabeth Diamond • Charles Dickens • Walt Disney • Emil Doepler • Lucy Wharton Drexel • Joseph Dudley • Edmund Dulac • Albrecht Durer
E • F
Albert Einstein • Geo. May Elwood • M. C. Escher • Karl Ettlinger • George W. Eve • Ex-Libris Society • Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford • Fire marks • Eric Fischl • Lucius G. Fisher • Harry W. Flannery • E. M. Forster • Raymond Blaine Fosdick • Frames • Edwin Davis "E.D." French • Sigmund Freud • Johnny Friedlander • John Whiting Friel and Helen Otillie • Louis Agassiz Fuertes • Robert Gorham Fuller
G
Hamlin Garland • George III (King of England) • James Charles Getting • Eric Gill • Dorothy Gish • Robert Gober • Charles E. Goodspeed • Georges Goury • E. Grabowski • Kate Greenaway • The Grolier Club • A Guide to the Study of Bookplates (Warren) • Johannes Gutenberg • R. Hollyer Guttenburg
H
Frederick Garrison Hall • William Henry Hart • Stewart Henry Hartshorn • H. O. Havemeyer Jr. • George Hawks • William R. A. Hays • John Gerard Heckscher • John Held Jr. • Joseph Hirshhorn and Jennie Berman • William Hogarth • Hokusai • Hans Holbein • Harold A. Holmes • Oliver Wendell Holmes • Mark Holstein • Jenny Holzer • Herbert Hoover • William Fowler Hopson • Hornbooks • Harry Houdini • Elbert Hubbard • Nathaniel Hurd
I • J • K
Imagery • Katsue Inoue • Lewis Jaffe • Robert Underwood Johnson • James Joyce • Carl S. Junge • V. Kacivecks • Anatoli Kalashnikov • R. M. Kearsley • James P. Keenan • Carl Tilden Keller • John F. Kennedy • Joseph Kennedy • Rockwell Kent • John Louis Ketterlinus • Stanley Keyes • Nikita Khrushchev • LeRoy Elwood Kimball • Rudyard Kipling • W. A. Kittredge • Johannes Knabensberg • Oskar Kokoschka
L • M
Frederic Leighton • Waldo Leland • Allen Lewis • Sol LeWitt • E. Libinson • "Little Masters" • Frederick Locker • Jack London • Anita Loos • Claire Boothe Luce • C. K. Lush • Arthur Nelson Macdonald • Leonard L. Mackall • Silvanus Macy Jr. • Robert Mangold • Richard Southcote Mansergh • Stanley Marcus • Susan and Harpo Marx • Hideko Matsubara • Brander Matthews • Maverick. Peter Rushton • Phil May • Robert R. McCormick • Marie Gerard Messenger • John O'Fallon Miller • Robert Humphrey Montgomery • J. P. Morgan • Willard S. Morse • Barry Moser • Thomas B. Mosher • Elizabeth Murray • Benito Mussolini
N • O
Edward J. Nally • Nationalities (American, Austrian, British, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian) • Calvin Neff • Harold Nelson • Maurice Newmark • New York Public Library • New York Society Library • New York Yacht Club Library • William Nicholson • George Norton Northrop • Claes Oldenburg • Omar Khayyam
P • R
Cliff Parfit • Maxfield Parrish • Jane Patterson • Kate Pembury • Samuel Pepys • George A Perera • John Pintard • The Players • George Arthur Plimpton • Willy Pogany • Walter Conway Prescott • Princeton University Library • Inc. Printed Matter • Printing (First presses; moveable type, invention of) • Howard Pyle • Frank R. Rathbun • Paul Revere • Louis Rhead • Frank Wood Richardson • Faith Ringgold • John Rockefeller and Abby Aldrich • Bruce Rogers • Eleanor Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
S
William Sampson • Margaret Sanger • Henry Hodgman Saylor • Arthur Schlesinger • Margot Schmitz • Irene Mayer Selznick and David Oliver • Maurice Sendak • Mark Severin • Henri Seyrig • Charles William Sherborn • Henry A. Sherwin • Lady Murasaki Shikibu • Shugio • Yurii Smirnov • Sidney Lawton Smith • Joseph Winfred Spenceley • Nancy Spero • Edward Steese • Maxwell Steinhardt • Louis E. Stern • Alfred Stieglitz • Styles (Art deco, Art nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Chippendale, Early English, Jacobean, linear, Ribbon & Wreath)
T
Chas. H. Taylor Jr. • Techniques (copperplate, engraving, etching, lithograph, silk screen, steel, stencil, white-line engraving, woodcut) • Louis Comfort Tiffany • Charles H. Townsend • Mark Twain
V • W • Y • Z
Rudolph Valentino • Lue Van der Briele • John and Ethel Van Derlip • Harold Stearns Vaughan • Victoria (Queen of England) • Justine and Walter Wanger • Marcus Ward • J. Leicester Warren • George Washington • H. G. Wells • Stanford White • John Hay Whitney • Wilhelm II (German Kaiser) • Francis Wilson • Windsor Castle Royal Library • Anna May Wong • Frank Lloyd Wright • Richard Wynkoop • Yurii Bai • Carola Zigrosser
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